Portable music players

My earlier FiiO X3 has been excellent, meeting all your criteria.

I have the A&K Jr. it's replacement is already out and much more expensive. The Jr uses a Wolfsen DAC (which I like). It sounds really good with my headphones. 

My unit does not have gapless playback. Others report that it works, it does not for me. 

With that one caveat, it's highly recommended by me. Good PRAT with my AKG K559 headphones. 

I purchased a micro SD card and put all my music on that directly from my PC (it has a card reader/writer), then inserted the card in the JR.  I have had some metadata problems that Minimserver is smart enough to fix on its own, so I have had to massage some things to look nice on the JR (just being totally honest here).

It has suited me well. I can't comment on the Fiio.  

The AK Jr has been replaced with the AK70.  The AK Jr was pretty good and fairly easy to use (although I preferred the AK100 II, albeit at higher cost) and at their heavily discounted price probably worth a go.  The AK70 looks good but I have only had a short hands on with one.

I notice that the Pioneer XDP-100R is also being heavily discounted and one well known UK chain is selling them with a set of Pioneer Headphones for under £300. I haven't heard the Pioneer though, so can't comment there but I'm sure said chain would agree to a demo.

My favourite DAP though is perhaps the most controversial - the Pono Player. The screen is small, it lacks any streaming or BT features, and it looks a bit Fisher Price, but it can output balanced and is still the best sounding DAP I've tried - especially paired with Sennheiser HD600s, which it drive really well, whether single ended or (even better) balanced. I prefer the sound even to the upper end AKs, and much more than the Sony ZX-2 which struggled with normal headphones (with Sennheiser HD600s, forget it), and is really at its best with IEMs.

I've been told I should try out the Questyle QP-1R as this could well give the Pono Player a run for its money - but it's a costly device, doesn't have a balanced output, and look a little bit bling for my taste. A mint Pono Player should be within your budget. It's a little bit naff, but very loveable, and the sound is good enough to make you forgive all.

Pono seems to be end of life as they don't appear to be manufactured anymore. 

Pono music store got shut down and the service they were using got bought (by Apple I think) and shut down. The pono website has been under construction for some time as they look for a new music partner. Also no Pono Players available on the site. 

PonO player was partially developed by Ayre Acoustics so it has a good pedigree. 

For car use, I just use a USB memory stick with music copied straight from my NAS. Although I also have a portable player, it doesn't get extra wear and tear from car use, where it might get hot, and the battery will get more wear. The USB stick just lives permanently in the car. The last one I bought was a 256GB one for £35.

Yup, things look a bit quiet on the Pono front.  But that shouldn't put you off - mint and unused units are constantly cropping up for sale in the usual places and it does still sound really good - natural and engaging in a way that just seems to elude the other DAPs - and it's easy to just drag and drop files onto the internal memory or SDXC card.  Oh, and it seems to have no trouble handling DSD files either.  Battery life isn't the best - the Sony ZX-2 was far and away the best here - but it seems to be about average.  Charging is just via USB so any USB charger should do fine (I plug the USB lead into my Apple charger) and one of those battery pack/charger thingies might be wise on holiday, but that applies for just about any DAP or phone.

AK Jr paired with Shure 846 (home and holiday) and AKG Y50BT (gym). 4 x Sandisk 128 GB micro SD cards. Sufficient to hold well over 1,000 albums ripped to FLAC. If funds permit I'll probably upgrade to the latest AK KANN, which sounds exquisite but is a bit pricey at £900.

i can't recommend the Jr enough, having owned various iPods (Classic, Nano etc), Fiio X3 and X5. I have listened to both the Sony ZX-2 and Pono, neither of which did it for me. For the money I think the Jr is unbeatable, but, as ever, demo as many as you can before buying.

Tim

Now I wish iPhone could handle high-res audio...

The reason is rather simple for me - iPhone integrates very well with my car via a snap-in adapter. Music is then accessible via a the central screen and iDrive (the car is a BMW).

Meant to say, before I got carried away, that the Jr meets all the requirements on your shopping list, and gapless works perfectly on mine.

Adam Zielinski posted:

Now I wish iPhone could handle high-res audio...

The reason is rather simple for me - iPhone integrates very well with my car via a snap-in adapter. Music is then accessible via a the central screen and iDrive (the car is a BMW).

My iPhone 6 sounds pretty good playing FLAC files, but nowhere near as nice as the Jr. I presume your BMW has Bluetooth? If so, the AK range might be your solution.

Timmo1341 posted:

Adam Zielinski posted:

Now I wish iPhone could handle high-res audio...

The reason is rather simple for me - iPhone integrates very well with my car via a snap-in adapter. Music is then accessible via a the central screen and iDrive (the car is a BMW).

My iPhone 6 sounds pretty good playing FLAC files, but nowhere near as nice as the Jr. I presume your BMW has Bluetooth? If so, the AK range might be your solution.

It does have Bluetooth. However the iPhone connection is wired, from the snap-in adapter...
Anyhow... my reply was a bit of a wishful thinking... that's all

Timmo1341 posted:

AK Jr paired with Shure 846 (home and holiday) and AKG Y50BT (gym). 4 x Sandisk 128 GB micro SD cards. Sufficient to hold well over 1,000 albums ripped to FLAC. If funds permit I'll probably upgrade to the latest AK KANN, which sounds exquisite but is a bit pricey at £900.

i can't recommend the Jr enough, having owned various iPods (Classic, Nano etc), Fiio X3 and X5. I have listened to both the Sony ZX-2 and Pono, neither of which did it for me. For the money I think the Jr is unbeatable, but, as ever, demo as many as you can before buying.

Tim

I didn't demo my stereo, and I'm not going to demo this. I'm sure all the recommendations will be better than my Sansa Clip, which I'm keeping for the gym. I'm not sure doing squats with an AKJ or Fiio is going to work. Mabe it's worth stretching for the A&K 70. It looks a lot nicer and has a proper volume control. 

I thought about splurging for the ak70, but it having a cirrus DAC turned me off. I tend to like products with Burr Brown (Naim) and Wolfsen (Rega). 

Brubacca posted:

I thought about splurging for the ak70, but it having a cirrus DAC turned me off. I tend to like products with Burr Brown (Naim) and Wolfsen (Rega). 

Might be worth listening to it than guessing its performance by its choice of DAC chip ?

Brubacca posted:

I thought about splurging for the ak70, but it having a cirrus DAC turned me off. I tend to like products with Burr Brown (Naim) and Wolfsen (Rega). 

I don't think judging how a player may sound by its choice of DAC chipset is the wisest thing here.  For example, the Pono uses the ESS 9018K2M 32-bit Sabre DAC chipset, and as a player it sounds quite different to other players that use the same ESS DAC. I've heard DAPs that use the TI Burr Brown DAC chipsets and perform like Naim they certainly don't...

Your both not wrong about listening if you have the chance. It's just not what I did.  

Since the the main purpose for me was using it to cut the grass and go on vacation I felt comfortable with the blind purchase. Plus I ordered from Amazon.com so if I had hated it I could have returned the unit. 

The fidelity that resulted was a happy circumstance.

Richard Dane posted:

Yup, things look a bit quiet on the Pono front.  But that shouldn't put you off - mint and unused units are constantly cropping up for sale in the usual places and it does still sound really good - natural and engaging in a way that just seems to elude the other DAPs 

That's a shame - i hadn't realised until i read this thread, that things had gone awry for Young and Co.

I still love my ZX2 but i'll keep my eye out for a used Pono. 

james n posted:

Richard Dane posted:

Yup, things look a bit quiet on the Pono front.  But that shouldn't put you off - mint and unused units are constantly cropping up for sale in the usual places and it does still sound really good - natural and engaging in a way that just seems to elude the other DAPs 

That's a shame - i hadn't realised until i read this thread, that things had gone awry for Young and Co.

I still love my ZX2 but i'll keep my eye out for a used Pono. 

I'm intrigued by the idea of a Pono too, but I'm not aware of anywhere you could trial any of these portable players. I, too, am still very happy with my ZX2. I use it exclusively with IEMs, which it seems to have no trouble driving, but I can see that it would show its limitations with on/over ear headphones. Still, this is probably thread drift, as it's well beyond HH's stated budget. (I justified the extravagance to myself on the basis that I spend a great deal of time away from home, and use mine almost as much as my Naim system, compared to which it's a bargain.)

I have had an AK70 for almost a year. It sounds very good to me although I didn't compare it with other models before purchase. Rather I bought it because it is very well made and has a good screen/user interface. Its size and appearance also appealed more than others. The Junior is physically larger and, if am not wrong, has greater storage capacity than the AK70. At its currently highly discounted price the Junior may be worthy of consideration, but I would highly recommend the AK70.

I have the Sony ZX2 and I am extremely happy with that. However it's out of your price range. So I would recommend the lower end Sony with an excellent 35 hours battery life, or the AK with less battery life.

It's not always easy to demo these players properly.  Even where you do find them available for demo it often needs days rather than minutes to appreciate them fully.  I took a punt with the Pono player - it's not one to wow you from the off - it lacks the sparkly top end of an AK or the boosted bottom end of an iBasso, but its charms really creep up on you.  But it wasn't until I decided to try the Pono with the Sennheiser HD600s that things really clicked.  So headphone choice will also be an important factor.  The Sony ZX2 I really wanted to love but it just didn't work for me. I find IEMs uncomfortable (don't like things in my ears) so only use headphones.  It was fine with my super-portable PX100s but started to struggle with the B&W P7s.  The Sennheiser HD600s were a complete no-go.  It seems everyone who likes this player uses IEMs, so that's what I'd recommend here.  Weirdly, my Sony PCM-M10 recorder drives full sized headphones with no problem.  It even drives HD600s, albeit the match is not ideal.  The Astell & Kern AK100 II drove pretty much any headphone I connected to it, including the HD600, although for the latter the volume had to be wound up with little extra to spare - I didn't get a 2.5mm balanced lead made up for the Senns so didn't try the balanced output.  I liked the A&K very much - way slicker than the Pono, and even put the Sony ZX-2 in the shade for presentation, speed and interface.  But I found it just a bit to cool and lacking in emotion sound-wise.  My ideal player would be one that is as easy to operate and responsive as an iPod Classic (still the only player that I can reliably use in a tight spot or in the car) but with the sound of the Pono, or better.

Interestingly I have found that the ZX-2 (purchased used from another poster on this thread!) has quite a low power output even for IEMs - I have few IEMs, my favourite being Shure 846 which must require a bit more voom vahvo than most as the ZX-2 struggles to drive them at adequate volume for a session cycling round Regent's Park!  Works great with other IEMs and bluetooth connection to the Mark Levinson in the car works well also.  I fitted a 200gb micro card topped up with hi rez files from Qobuz.  HH may be able to pick one up pre-owned within budget - provided he doesn't have slightly power demanding headphones.

Peter

northpole posted:

Interestingly I have found that the ZX-2 (purchased used from another poster on this thread!) has quite a low power output even for IEMs - I have few IEMs, my favourite being Shure 846 which must require a bit more voom vahvo than most as the ZX-2 struggles to drive them at adequate volume for a session cycling round Regent's Park!  

Normal listening for me (albeit sat at my desk) is probably at about 1/5th full volume using my ZX2 into SE846s (with all the sound enhancement, volume limiting crap turned off). I suspect if i was doing something a bit more physical than typing then i might need a bit more volume 

Safe that you can't use it while inside the tent, simply filling some USB pens with music and using the car stereo? Which resolutions does it support? Maybe just Mp3, but is it too scarce quality while driving? Or is an iPod or iPhone too low–quality while falling asleep?

Sorry if my suggestion is silly, but seemed the most practical. Unless, of course, you plan to have portable music at any time you want, but – excuse my question – would it really be holiday?

CD

With no intention to get the thread off topic but rather wondering about the best SQ on-the-go within the budget: how does the AK Jn. (discounted at £250) or similar compare to the Chord Mojo (in the second-hand market for a similar price)? [Chord Mojo used with a box-standard smartphone, which might not be the best transport, I fear.)

Has anybody done the comparison?

Cheers,

Timo